Maintaining quality of care through a pandemic and setting goals for future improvement

The National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) was established in 2006 and continues to play an important role in driving and supporting improvements in neonatal care. The past two years have been a period of change for the NNAP, bringing a new data flow methodology, exciting opportunities to further develop the NNAP, and a new contract for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) to deliver the audit until 2025.

Sam Oddie
NNAP Clinical Lead, Consultant
Neonatologist, Bradford Teaching Hospitals
NHS FT

Rachel Winch
NNAP Manager, Royal College of Paediatrics
and Child Health
nnap@rcpch.ac.uk

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Keywords

breastfeeding; coronavirus; human breast milk; preterm; quality improvement

Key points

Quality improvement practices can increase the dose of OMM use in neonatal care units.
Motivated and trained staff and increased availability of hospital-grade electric breast pumps can increase early, frequent and effective breast milk expression practices in the NICU.
Measures aimed at reducing COVID-19 transmission had an unintended negative impact on OMM use in the NICU.

Also published in Infant:

VOLUME 14/ISSUE 4, JULY 2018

Breastfeeding very low birthweight infants in Brazil: a successful experience

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